This invention relates to disposable protective eyewear. More particularly, the present invention is directed to adjustable eye protectors intended for one-time use to reduce the exposure of eyes to incident light and other potential eye irritants.
The human eye is a sensitive organ. Because of its sensitivity and its constant exposure to the environment during every person's routine daily activities, the eye is perhaps more susceptible to irritation and injury than any other human organ. We are reminded constantly of the importance of eye safety and protection from the possible causes of eye injury, namely damaging radiation, projectiles and potential eye irritants. Warnings to use appropriate eye protection measures appear on everything from hammers to hair colorings.
Intense visible light or radiation of shorter wavelength, i.e., between about 200 and about 400 nanometers (ultraviolet radiation), from the sun or from artificial light sources poses a significant risk of eye damage. The eye is particularly susceptible to damage from exposure to ultraviolet radiation because the damaging radiation cannot itself be sensed by the light receptors in the eye. In other words, ultraviolet (UV) radiation is invisible to the eye, and the injury is not apparent until after the damage is done. While the UV radiation component of sunlight can itself damage the eyes without proper precaution, the majority of cases of UV radiation eye damage has resulted from the use, or more appropriately the misuse, of artificial sunlamp products in the home or in commercial tanning salons. Responsive to that fact, federal regulations have been promulgated to specify safety standards for the manufacture and use of UV emitting products. One of those regulations (21 C.F.R. .sctn. 1040.20) requires that protective eyewear be provided and used with all UV emitting lamps. To comply with these regulations some lamp manufacturers and many tanning salon proprietors have been supplying customers with reusable goggle-type protective eyewear, which although functional to protect the eyes, are uncomfortable and not size-adjustable to fit each prospective user. Moreover, reusable protective eyewear preesnts certain sanitary problems--they can serve as a means for spreading communicable eye diseases of both microbial and viral origin. This fact, especially with the present day fear of contracting certain viral infections, prompts many users of UV light emitting products to refuse to use appropriate protective eyewear. Reusable goggles, although available to the customer, are often simply not used.
Clearly the availability of a disposable, adjustable, and inexpensive eye protector for use with UV emitting devices and for use in other circumstances requiring temporary protection of the eye from potential eye irritants, would meet important public health and safety needs. Not only would such promote the use of appropriate eye protection at home and in the increasingly popular tanning salons, but it would also help to minimize the spread of disease possibly associated with reusable protective eyewear.
Disposable eye protectors are not new. Several early inventors faced with the need for easy to use eye protectors developed and patented occular patch-type protective eyewear in both disposable and reusable forms. See, for example, the eye protectors or eye shields disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,165,668; 2,283,752; 2,572,638; 3,068,863; and 2,527,947. While the patch-type eye protectors disclosed in those early patents, as well as other more recently developed forms of protective eyewear, do function to protect the eyes from potential eye irritants and harmful radiation, none of them were designed (1) to be adjustable to maximize user fit and comfort; (2) to selectively transmit at least a portion of visible light so that the user can "see" while wearing the protective eyewear; or (3) to be shaped to conform to the facial tissue adjacent the eye and to allow for substantially unhindered eye lid movement when the eye protector is positioned over the eye.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive, disposable eye protector.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for reducing exposure of an eye to eye irritants and to potentially harmful light radiation by forming a film segment having an applied contact adhesive into a contoured cone-shaped eye protector and positioning said eye protector to cover the eye.
A further object of the present invention is to provide simple but functional protective eyewear adapted to be size-adjustable for a conforming fit.
Still another object of this invention is to provide an adjustable, disposble eye protector which reduces the exposure of an eye to harmful irritants and UV radiation while at the same time allowing sufficient transmission of visible light to allow the user to see.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide an eye protector formed from a slotted ovoid to circular shaped segment of UV light absorbing film having an applied contact adhesive.
Another object of this invention is to provide a method of protecting an eye by covering the eye with an eye protector formed from a circular to ovoid shaped film segment, having a locus of applied contact adhesive, into a size-adjustable, cone-shaped protective device having a base marginally shaped as to be conformable to the facial contours continguous to the eyes; the contact adhesive applied to the film segment functions both as a shape-retaining means for the cone-shaped eye protector and as a position-retaining means when the protector is positioned to cover the eye.
Those and other objects of this invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the invention as illustrated by way of example in the accompanying drawings.